The day before we bought the house, I strolled about in the neighborhood to do a "butcher"*. I saw the "Hawaii Bar" at 999 Dovercourt Rd. a short walk away, seedy enough to be comfortable. Across the street was the Portuguese "Progress Bakery" with very decent espresso, fluffy Kaiser buns, crusty cornbread, and creamy Pastel de Nata all baked there fresh daily. Just a block away was "Rosso's Italian Barbershop and Salon". Signor Rosso was cutting hair from nine to six weekdays and his old friend, semiretired Paolo, helped out Friday afternoons and Saturdays.
For years, every third Wednesday of the month, after work, I went for a trim and to read three-day-old copies of Il Messaggero and La Stampa. There were always a few elderly Italian gentlemen hanging around talking among themselves, respecting the unwritten rule: no politics, no religion. After they saw me coming in regularly for about a year, I became a "vicino", they would greet me with a friendly "buongiorno dottore!" and would switch from their incomprehensible Calabrese to standard Italian to include me i the conversation. There was one thing I didn't like as a life-long Inter fan: Rosso had this huge picture of Juventus prominently on the main wall. Whenever Rosso boasted of how well Juve had done over the weekend, I reminded him of the 2006 season**.
We would watch fascinated the lightning-quick fandango of Rosso's super-sharp, silvery pointy scissors as they danced, dangerously close to the ears and scalp of whoever sat in the chair while he chatted and laughed with us. Rosso was proudly showing off his unbelievable hand-eye coordination achieved in fifty or so years of cutting hair on two continents.
One Wednesday, to my surprise, I found Paolo in the shop by himself: "Buongiorno Signor Paolo, dove è Rosso?" he replied: "Brutte notizie, Rosso ha subito un distacco della retina e lo ha fatto l'operazione d'urgenza." To which I could only say "O diomio, merda!"
The silver scissors have stopped dancing forever. The store is now a dubious dry-cleaning and alteration place.
I get my hair cut three and a half blocks down, on Ossington, at "Kebede's Men's Barber" which has fresh Toronto Start and Globe and Mail. I speak not one word of Amharic*** and we chat about the province and country being led by liars and crooks, and how he cannot afford to retire. That's OK by me because I cannot get a twenty-dollar haircut anyhow, anywhere within walking distance.
Almost forgot: if you, gentle readers, wonder what's up with the title and how it is connected to this story, I am not too sure about that myself.
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* British, informal "take a look" comes from the Cockney "butcher hook: look."
** FC Juventus Torino was relegated to the second league following a match fixing and financial fraud scandal
*** official language of Ethiopia
Good one, bruh!
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